A. Field of the Invention
Concepts described herein relate generally to interface aggregation, and more particularly, to enhancing performance of an aggregated interface upon failure of a member link.
B. Description of Related Art
In an increasingly networked world, more and more traffic, such as data, voice, and video, is transmitted over public and proprietary networks. In most networks, a networking device, such as a switch or router, receives data packets from a number of ingress ports connected to the networking device and provides the data packets to a number of egress ports connected to the networking device. The networking device typically determines the proper egress port to which the data packets are forwarded based on several elements, including the destination address included in the data packet.
In a traditional networking model, a destination device is connected through one physical link to one egress port in the networking device. A data packet received at an ingress port for the destination is forwarded through the networking device to an identified egress port. The destination device may be a computer, a switch, or a router.
To increase bandwidth available on the network, as well as the reliability and performance of the network, the destination device may be connected to more than one egress port through multiple physical links with each physical link terminating at an egress port. The multiple physical links are members of a logical link, (referred to as an “aggregate interface”), between the networking device and the destination device.
For each packet or message that must pass between the two communication devices, the sending communication device selects one of the member links of the aggregated interface to receive the packet or message. In some instances the selection of a particular member link may be made based on a predetermined load balancing technique, such as a round robin or weighted round robin approach, to ensure that each member link carries a proportionate share of the network traffic.
One problem with known link aggregation techniques relates to the efficient handling of member link failures. Without rapid identification and isolation of inactive member links, data may be improperly forwarded to an in inactive link in the aggregate interface, resulting in data loss.